Wearing the right pair of dress shoes can improve your suit dramatically. Lacing them wrong can completely undermine that effort. This chart shows the proper way to lace dress shoes, and even the types of laces to use.

For less formal attire, the normal criss-cross lace style is probably acceptable. Most people have probably used this style in a shoe at some point. However, this chart from The Art of Manliness also demonstrates how to do the straight lace, which can be a bit more complicated. The site also recommends using thin, round or flat laces, but suggests you should avoid any nylon athletic style laces.